How Did I Get Here: Soliloquies Of Youth

Over four days of kōrero and collaboration, tautoko and awhi, young men from Te Puna Wai o Tūhinapō wrote their answers to the question ‘How did I get here?’ as poems, which have been collected in this book, with illustrations by two of the participants.

In January 2020 poet Ben Brown took a box of biros, an A4 ream of paper and a question to 28 YPs—young people—living in Te Puna Wai o Tūhinapō, the Oranga Tamariki youth justice residence next door to Rolleston Prison, south-west of Christchurch.

He asked them, ‘How did you get here?’

Over four days of kōrero and collaboration, tautoko and awhi, the young men aged 13–18 wrote their answers as poems, which have been collected in a book, with illustrations by two of the participants.